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177) For this reason, when he accompanied, he was rewarded and the Creator said, “Do I hide from Abraham that which I am doing?” “For the Lord God will do nothing.” Happy are the righteous in the world whom the Creator desires, and all that He has done in heaven and will do in the world, He does through the righteous; and He hides nothing from them.
178) The Creator wishes to share with the righteous, so they would come and warn people to repent from their iniquities or they will be punished by the upper Din and will not be able to say that they were not warned and did not know. For this reason, the Creator informs them that He will execute judgment in them, so they will not say that He punishes them without sentence.
179) Woe unto the wicked who do not know and do not observe to know, and do not know how to beware of their own iniquities. And the Creator, whose every deed is true and whose ways are law, does not do all that He does in the world before He reveals to the righteous, so that people will have no claim against Him. People themselves are all the more so—they should follow their words in a way that they will not speak hatefully of them. It is also written, “Then you shall be clear before the Lord and before Israel.”
180) For people to not be able to complain about the Creator, the righteous should warn them that if they sin and do not examine themselves to be watchful, the Creator’s quality of Din will have a reason to complain against them. They will be saved from the quality of Din by repentance and good deeds.
181) The Creator gave the whole of the land to Abraham to have as his lot and inheritance forever, as it is written, “All the land which you see.” It is also written, “Lift up your eyes and look.” Afterwards, when the Creator wished to uproot and destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, the Creator said, “I have already given the land to Abraham, and he is everyone’s father, as it is written, ‘For I have made you the father of a multitude of nations,’ and it is unbecoming for me to strike the sons without alerting their father, which I have called ‘Abraham My beloved.’ Hence, I must notify him. For this reason, the Creator said, ‘Do I hide from Abraham that which I am doing?’”
182) Come and see Abraham’s humbleness. Even though the Creator told him, “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is great,” and even though He waited with him and alerted him that he wished to execute judgment in Sodom, he did not pray before him to save Lot and to not execute the judgment with him, so as to not ask for reward for his deeds.
183) And even though he did not ask, the Creator sent for Lot and saved him for Abraham, as it is written, “God remembered Abraham… when He overthrew the cities in which Lot lived.”
184) “In which Lot lived.” They were named after him because they were all wicked and no one was found to have merit but Lot. We learn from this that every place where wicked dwell is destroyed. When the writing says, “In which Lot lived,” it means that for all the others who were living there it was not considered a settlement, but regarded as destructed, desolate, and uninhabited, since they were wicked.
185) “In which Lot lived.” But did Lot live in all of them? Since they were living in the cities thanks to him, and were not destroyed, they were named after him. And if you say that it was for Lot’s merit, it is was not so. Rather, it was for Abraham’s merit.
186) The service that a person does for the righteous protects him in the world. And even though he is wicked, he learns from his ways and does them.
187) Because Lot bonded with Abraham, although he did not learn all of his deeds from him, he did learn from him to do good to people as Abraham did. Once Lot settled among them, he would inhabit all those cities as long as they were inhabited. This is why it is written, “In which Lot lived.”
188) Divinity did not move from Abraham at the time when the Creator was with him. Moreover, Divinity herself spoke with him and not only the Creator. This is so because in this degree, the Creator appeared to him, as it is written, “And I appeared unto Abraham… as God Almighty,” which is Divinity.
189) It is written, “And the Lord said, ‘The cry.’” First it says, “And God said,” meaning He and His courthouse, Divinity. In the end it says “And the Lord said,” which is the upper degree that appeared to him over the lower degree, which is Divinity.
194) There are more than fifty portions in the Torah, for they are fifty-three portions. This is because each of the five books in the Torah consists of ten commandments, ten utterances by which the world was created, which makes fifty.
196) The thirty-two paths of wisdom are when ZON, which are twenty-two letters, rise for MAN to Bina, which is ten Sefirot. In Bina, they become thirty-two discernments, the thirty-two paths of wisdom—twenty-two from ZON and ten from Bina herself—since Bina herself desires only Hassadim.
However, when ZON rise up to her for MAN, she ascends to the Rosh of AA and becomes Hochma there. At that time, she is called “The thirty two paths of wisdom [Hochma].”
Sometimes they are mingled in eight, in Bina, where there are only eight Sefirot from her own essence downwards, since she lacks Keter and Hochma, her GAR. Also, at that time she is not regarded as thirty-two paths of wisdom but only as thirty merits because she lacks Hochma. This is implied in Abraham’s words, “Suppose thirty are found there?”